Should You Think About Search Rankings When You Create Content?

Hi All, hope our previous article on how to increase website traffic was helpful. Today, we’ll discuss an important topic which is – Should you think about search ranking when creating content? Well, read on to find out!

Everyone wants to be on the first page of a Google search for their business. The problem is that if you have hundreds of competitors, and all of them are trying to be on the first page, most are probably bound not to achieve that. That’s why search rankings are so important.

Google and other similar search engines use algorithms to rank how relevant a search might be to your audience. This algorithm measures keyword density, backlinking, amount of images, and any number of things that could boost you up in the search. The higher up you are in your search, the better chance you have of being found.

It’s no surprise that businesses tend to put a high-priority on search rankings when they create web content. But should they? Well, yes and no. Obviously, with so many web pages competing for those 10 first page spots, it’s important to keep your search rankings in mind and take steps to boost your SEO.

But, too many cheats, to try to achieve a higher search ranking can bring down the quality of your content. It’s little use impressing an algorithm if you can’t impress actual people with your content. As with most things, the solution is to find the right balance. And for that, it helps to know why you should and why you shouldn’t consider search rankings when it comes to your content.

Why You Should Consider Search Rankings

Over 90% of online searches do not extend past the first page. Of the remaining searches that do, only half continue beyond the third page. So if you want your target audience to find you, it’s absolutely vital that you be on the first page. Especially in this digital age, when often your business’s online presence is as large or larger than your physical presence. The higher your business ranks on search engines, the more likely you are to get clicks and, of course, have those clicks turn into leads.

Ranking high does more than simply make your business visible. It also helps you to appear established. When you’re the first or second search result to appear, your audience is more likely to believe you to be a trusted source and less likely to question that you might be a scam.

Sometimes boosting your search rankings is as easy as using the keywords that your target audience would be most likely to search in order to find a business like yours. Other times, you may have to reach out and partner with others to build links to your webpage across the internet through guest blogging, blog commenting, AMAs, and other methods. Formatting choices, like bolding certain important words and using headers, can also attract the attention of search engine algorithms.

Why You Shouldn’t Consider Search Rankings…Too Much

Ultimately, you want to attract people, not search engines. The search engine is just a tool to help you to attract those people to your website. If they click on your content and find it stuffed with keywords, or if they see a spam comment on every other online forum linking back to your site, they’re not only less likely to be interested in your business, but more likely to find your business tacky and possibly suspicious. Those habits could shoot you up to the first page of a Google search, certainly, but they won’t turn any of those clicks into leads.

Perhaps the best thing you can do is to draft your content without considering search rankings at all. Simply think about your target audience and how this content will help them in some way or encourage them to connect with you and your business further. After that content is drafted, you may find that keywords naturally blend themselves into the work and that alone can help boost your rankings.

Once that’s done, search for organic, ethical ways to boost your SEO and search rankings. The result will be content that’s not only higher on the search engines, but actually interests the people you want to attract.

Search engine algorithms are great at picking up on relevance, but people are great at noticing whether content was created specifically for them or simply to boost their rankings on Google. Don’t be afraid to employ some good SEO practices to boost your search rankings–in fact, you…pretty much need to in this day and age. However, don’t work so hard to boost your search rankings that you lose the quality of your content. The best SEO has always been and will always be quality, original content.

This is a guest post by Josh Elkin, founder of Best Coast Marketing – a marketing agency which helps increase their clients’ traffic through organic link-building. Josh enjoys writing about entrepreneurship, marketing, productivity and self-improvement.

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